Ephemerum
by DoctorPeggy
Summary: Music is the only gift Annabeth can accept from the gods. All else, she knows, cannot come without cost. AU.
1. Chapter 1: Sight

The place where Annabeth is performing is small, but decent. She's performed here twice before, and she knows it's barely a start if she wants to make music her career, but the audience has received her well so far, so she has hope.

The evening is warm, and Annabeth bears it with patience, though she does take out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off her face and neck. She's on her fourth song, the last for the night, and the audience has been lulled into a mellow merriness. Annabeth thumbs her electronic keyboard, building anticipation.

Her eyes catch on a figure at the end of the room, standing by the door of the establishment. He's looking at her in anticipation, but he seems cut off from the rest of the crowd, and something about how he stands there, though Annabeth's not sure what, gives her the sense that he knows he's not someone this establishment would expect. He raises his eyebrows at Annabeth, his smile slightly crooked but also slightly endearing, and Annabeth finds herself blushing.

She holds his gaze for the briefest of moments before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Behind her closed lids she sees a startling blue-green ocean, and when she opens her eyes and starts playing the last song on the keyboard, she is left wondering why her mind had conjured up that image all of a sudden.

But as she slips into the rhythm of the song, the image is washed away, and the colours of her own music fill her up. Her first three songs were of other artists. She'd given them her own voice, but they weren't hers.

This last one is an original, and she feels the song in every part of her body as she builds up the music. She tastes the first few words on her tongue just before she opens her mouth and starts to sing.

Annabeth forgets the crowd is there at all. She lets herself feel the song, she knows it too well by now to make a mistake.

Though she _has_ made mistakes before by letting herself get lost, and her mother calls her reckless, but her father knows what she feels when she loses herself in her music, though he himself hasn't inherited any musical ability.

Music to her is like reaching for something that's just beyond her reality, it's a taste of something far away and different from the thoughts that are usually in her mind. It's the one thing she knows how to do from her heart.

And she revels in the feeling of it.

She closes her eyes and plays the keyboard by touch. The song is about warm summer evenings in her childhood, nothing special or different, but singing it she feels like she can almost smell the hot seaside air, taste the sticky drops of a quickly melting orange popsicle dripping onto her hand.

Writing the song, she held those feelings, those impressions, tight and close. And now, when she sings it, she pictures those summer evenings, letting them take over her vision. She pours her childhood into the music.

As the song comes to an end, Annabeth sings the final notes slow and clear, and she feels the rest of the world coming back to her. The applause is startling, she's never heard anything quite like it before, and it takes her a minute to realize that it's the applause for _her_ song. She smiles at the audience, her heart feeling light and buoyant.

She thanks them for listening, and wishes them a nice evening, before carrying her keyboard off the stage. As she leaves, she sees startling sea-green eyes watching her intently from the back of the room. It's the boy from before, and as she enters the wings holding his gaze, it feels as if a gentle sea breeze is tugging at the ends of her hair.

Then, just as she's stepping into the small, dark corridor behind the stage, she remembers that image of the ocean, and it dawns on her that it's the colour of _his_ eyes. The eyes of the strange boy standing in the back.

Her face heats up, and Annabeth shakes her head to clear it of emotion. She'd better get going if she wants to have time enough to tidy herself up before going to watch the next performer.

(And if she wants to catch _him_ before he leaves, though she tells herself that's neither here nor there.)

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A/N: Feel free to express your thoughts about this chapter!


	2. Chapter 2: Dissonance

When she returns, hair now tucked into a Yankees baseball cap and clothes lighter and more casual, he's gone. Adjusting the bag with her keyboard which is slung over her shoulder, she makes her way to the back of the open-air restaurant, thinking that perhaps she only can't see him because she doesn't have a good enough view from the crowd.

Nobody pays her any mind. Under her baseball cap her face is hidden, and people notice surprisingly little when they're not looking for anything. The performance after hers is a band, and they're taking some time to set up, but the crowd is watching them in anticipation nevertheless.

A short girl with a high voice, presumably the lead singer, attempts to hold the crowd's attention while her bandmates fiddle with their instruments. Annabeth half-listens to her as she weaves through the jumble of bodies, reaching the end of the crowd as she hears the band start playing their first song.

But the person she's looking for isn't there. Annabeth sighs, turning around to watch the band perform. It's not the kind of music she usually listens to, but it's good, and she starts to get carried away by it.

By the third song she's starting to quite like the band, and is making a mental note of their name; so focused that she all but screams when she feels a tap on her shoulder.

From behind her she hears a chuckle, and she turns around, heart beating wildly.

Her heartbeat increases tenfold when her eyes fall straight into the very sea-green ones she has been thinking about, which are looking at her with amusement.

She's almost sure that every single drop of blood that is in her body is rushing up to her face.

"Didn't mean to scare you," he grins, "I just wanted to tell you I liked your song."

Annabeth, for all her usual intellect, now opens and closes her mouth not unlike the pet goldfish she had when she was nine. The man chuckles again, teeth flashing, the dim lights catching his cheekbones and his lips and the tips of his eyelashes.

He's slightly breathless; hair messier than Annabeth thinks it was when she'd seen him from on stage, one cheek streaked with dirt and an angry-looking cut on his jaw that Annabeth is sure wasn't there earlier.

And still, in the lamplit twilight, he looks like a marble statue come to life; handsome and striking.

"I really startled you, didn't I?" he says with a smirk, snapping Annabeth's attention away from his jawline.

"I'm Annabeth," she blurts.

"Yup," he nods, taking the non-sequitur in stride, "I heard you introduce yourself on stage. I'm Percy, by the way."

"Percy…" Annabeth tests out, "that's not a name you hear so much these days."

"Neither is Annabeth," Percy counters thoughtfully, "although my name's actually Perseus. Not that anyone ever calls me that, though."

"Perseus? Like the Greek hero?" Annabeth asks, finally getting hold of her wits.

"Yeah," he grins, although his hand reaches up to rub the back of his neck nervously.

Annabeth notices a huge scrape on the side of his hand, starting from his wrist and ending at his elbow. Mud and glass sticks to the bare skin, but there is little of it, as if most of it has been brushed off carelessly. Percy notices her gaze on the wound and jerks his hand away from his neck, bringing it back to his side. There's a tense silence as he seems to wait to see if Annabeth will say anything. But she won't, she's not stupid. It's clear to see that he doesn't want her to ask about it.

Instead, she latches onto the conversation thread of Greek mythology. At the very least, it's something she knows a lot about.

"Perseus is one of the cooler heroes, really," she tries with a forced lightness, "He didn't die tragically, and that's a start anyway."

But Percy doesn't seem to take this well. He tenses, hand reaching into his pocket. His eyes narrow.

"You're into Greek mythology," he says flatly, though Annabeth can tell he's trying to pitch it like a question. It's clear that he's not very good at faking polite conversation.

It's also clear that something in the conversation has gone wrong, and Annabeth has no idea what.

"Yeah," she responds slowly, "my parents used to tell me stories as a child, and once I learned how to read, I pretty much read everything there was to read about it."

Her own voice sounds strange and stilted to her, the tension in the atmosphere seeping into her.

But thankfully, Percy relaxes almost as soon as she finishes her sentence, the easy smile sliding back onto his face. Annabeth lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

"I'm working on a song about the myths actually," she feels compelled to add, relief making her words come out easier.

"Oh?" he quirks an eyebrow.

"Well, it's not finished, but I think… I think it's going to be different from anything I've every sung before."

"Well, yeah, I guess any song works like that, right?"

"No, I mean—it's going to _feel_ different."

"Ohhhh… so like when you hear a different song. Right. I totally get it."

"No! I mean… sort of, but it's… I get the sense that the song will—never mind, you'll think I'm crazy."

"Okay then?"

"Yeah. Anyway, what—"

But Annabeth's question is cut short by a low, chilling howl. She whips her head towards the door, because she's almost sure the howl is not any normal creature. The people around her seem unaffected, which only cements Annabeth's fears.

"I'm going to step out for a bit, it's kind of stuffy in here," she hears Percy say from next to her, and she whips her head back in his direction.

"No!" she screeches in reflex, causing some people to turn and frown at her.

She clears her throat.

"I mean," she amends, "I'll come with you."

Percy's jaw is set, and Annabeth has the strangest feeling that his timing is not a coincidence. She's not the only one who has heard the howl.

"It's okay," he tries to say casually, "I'll just step out for a bit," but his expression doesn't match his words.

"That's alright, I'd be happy to come with you. Unless you mind, of course," Annabeth responds with more composure than Percy.

And Percy is stuck. It would be rude to tell her he does mind, and it would be strange to tell her she doesn't have to—Annabeth knows this. She's her mother's daughter, after all.

From outside, there is a low growling, and Percy shudders. He looks at Annabeth carefully, and it feels like he's seeing through her.

He narrows his eyes.

"Okay," he says slowly, "let's go."

And without waiting for her, he sprints for the door.

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A/N: Feel free to express your thoughts about this chapter!


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